Review: The Need for Speed: 3GHz and counting

Introduction

Although considered something
of a fringe group by the major companies, those who practice the art of
over clocking their PCs can yield valuable information into how certain
products perform, and are expected to perform in the short-term future.

The desire to get something
effectively for free has always been the lure to those who like to push
their systems to the limit. This is especially true in the CPU market
where processors are differentiated by speed grades. Obviously the fastest
processors incur a substantial price premium over mid and lower speed
graded processors.

Intel have been playing the
speed grading game for some time now. At the time of writing, a 2.0 GHz
Northwood retail processor cost around £150, a 2.26GHz Northwood B cost
around £210, and the daddy of the Northwood clan, the 2.53GHz Northwood
B, comes in at a whopping £550.

With such price disparity
between processors, you can perhaps appreciate the desire to 'overclock'
your processor to the next speed grade and beyond. The headroom of any
processor is dependant on a number of factors, however.

Firstly, let's assume that
either AMD or Intel receive surprisingly good yields from a batch of
processors. This usually happens when a move to a smaller manufacturing
process has been perfected. Now, you cannot simply mark every processor as
a flagship model, the price premium ensures that the demand isn't quite
there. In these cases, the decent yields often have to be marked down to
lower speed grades to fulfill market demand. It stands to reason that
Intel will probably sell more 2.26GHz processors than 2.53GHz CPUs. The
prohibitive price of the latter is out of the reach of many.

The recent move to a
13-nanometer process, coupled with a decrease in operating voltage, and the
relatively new inception of the P4 processor, ensured that it would scale
well. As the newer Northwoods were smaller and therefore cheaper to
produce than their Willamette counterparts, Intel simply released them in
a number of speed grades. The lower rated Northwood, the 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz
CPU, were prime candidates for surpassing their rated speeds
comfortably.

Earlier this year, there was
much excitement in the overclocking community when the 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz
Northwoods were released. These not only surpassed the fastest available
P4, the 2.2GHz CPU, they often scaled to 2.4GHz and beyond with just a
little voltage increase.

Time has moved on and we now
have a 2.53GHz processor available to those who are deep of pocket. I'd
read on a number of forums that the recent 2.26GHz CPUs were doing very
well, often surpassing 2.53GHz at default voltage (assuming your
motherboard supported FSB manipulation). With this in mind, I procured a
couple and waited in anticipation. When it arrived, this was displayed on the
side of the box.